The Health Science Center at the University of San Antonio developed a proposed five-year strategic plan for the use of the NIH Endowment income. The President of the UTHSCSA will serve as a Principal Investigator. The Director of the Hispanic Center of Excellence will serve as the NIH Endowment Program Administrator. The strategic plan was developed assuming eligibility as a Capacity Building Award that approximately $1 million dollars with a 4% rate of endowment income would occur annually. As part of the Endowment Strategic Plan, three projects have been outlined to be funded by endowment income: 1) Year One: Promoting Academic Achievement Through Integration of Learning and Teaching Resources Project; 2) Years Two through Five: Graduate student and Medical School Faculty Enhancement of Teaching, and Test-Writing Skills Project; 3) Year One through Five: Academic Enhancement Project for Graduate and Medical Students. Each project has a rationale, methodology, target population, evaluation and 5-year budget with justification section. The goals of these projects are to 1) design a comprehensive academic support system for students at the UTHSCSA using a strategic planning process; 2) provide an environment, via creation of a Teaching Academy, for the exposure of new faculty and senior postdoctoral associates to instructional training and encourage development of their instructional skills. Senior and mid-career faculty will be encouraged to will be encourage to enhance their instructional skills and their capabilities in teaching; and 3) assist graduate and medical minority and disadvantaged students to successfully utilize their individual learning styles to complete their graduate studies via academic enhancement and tutorial instruction.
